Art for reading fun, can be nurtured, grown and developed, and in doing so, the MIND will bloom. Confidence and skill will follow. Smartsy Reading Teacher advocates purposefully incorporating art into lessons.
Here are some ways to utilize art in language arts, which naturally feeds into reading.
Art for Reading Fun Ideas:
- Make Stationery for letter writing. Engage in a family or friend mail-system, or pen-pal system that encourages writing and reading!
- Write and illustrate personal narratives, stories or reports, and then read and share with others.
- Illustrate stories read (for comprehension), story summaries, story events, or reading selection main points.
- Illustration of content concepts or new vocabulary words or even spelling words is a great exercise.
- Art projects as phonics anchors make learning fun. More about that here>>
- Spelling words practiced in fun lettering styles. More about that here>>
- GAMES, like the Spelling Drawing Guessing Game… (see below)
I never met a child that did not enjoy the opportunity to learn how to draw better, in a non-intimidating way. If you are not familiar with the wonderful variety of “how to draw,” books that are available, I encourage you to become so. Available on Amazon, and in second hand book stores, these books are available for cheap, cheap! These books can really help kids practice art for reading fun!
Pinterest is actually another resource for “how to draw,” in easy steps, and an endless variety of art project ideas, methods, and mediums that may be incorporated into the child’s day. The picture above in far right bottom is a sample. I call it Scratch Art.
Scratch Art
Not for the very short attention span, what the artist, speller must first do is color the whole page. I recommend a variety of pretty and bright crayons be used. The variety of colors on this first layer will make the “scratching,” more interesting. In this layer, results will be better if the crayon is applied with considerable pressure. Color darkly rather than lightly.
Next, black crayon is to be applied, also darkly on top of the colorful layer. Lastly, WORDS or/and picture(s) may be drawn or “scratched.”
This is a cool way to practice spelling words and vocabulary words. Kids enjoy having a collection of their projects which can later be reviewed and read. Thus, art for reading fun has enriched their life again.
Spelling Drawing Guessing Game
This game, as I describe it, may remind you of an OLD game…
For beginners, it can be played with one word at a time. For more advanced spellers, and readers, a whole sentence is appropriate. In this game, there will be the Drawer, and the Guesser(s).
The Drawer, must think of a word or sentence, and draw a blank for each letter, with spaces between words, if a sentence is the goal. Then the Guesser(s) guess one letter at a time. If that letter is part of the word or sentence then the Drawer writes that letter where it should go. If that letter is not part of the plan, or does not go in one of the letter blanks, then write it to the side somewhere as reference. Also if a letter is guessed which does not belong, then a PART to the picture is drawn.
So while the Guesser(s) are trying to guess the letters, and words, or sentence, they are also interested, and intrigued as they try to guess what the picture is!!
Thanks for letting me share some of my favorite ways to use art for reading fun. Hope you have fun with ’em, and hug your kiddos! Would you share pictures of your child’s art projects, on the Smartsy Reading Teacher facebook page?
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